Psychological traits that may fuel conspiracy theorist mindset identified (phys.org)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/world@lemmy.world

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In a new study published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, researchers identify two psychological traits common among people with a conspiracist mindset: a sense of injustice and a low tolerance of ambiguity.

The first is a low tolerance of ambiguity or TA. People with low TA find it difficult to handle stories or situations that are not abundantly clear or contain "shades of gray." They often feel anxious when a situation is unclear or random. Conspiracy theories remove this uncertainty by providing a simple, black-and-white explanation.

The second factor is a sense of injustice. People who are sensitive to perceived injustices or who believe the world is unfairly rigged against them are more likely to subscribe to conspiracy theories. The belief that someone is "pulling the strings" or controlling the situation helps them to make sense of what is going on. For these individuals, a secret plot is a more satisfying explanation than the idea that the world is simply random and complex.

The researchers also found that people who are younger, as well as those who are more religious also have a stronger conspiracist mentality.

top 4 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

To reach their conclusions, the study authors focused on the idea of cover-ups, the belief that organizations and governments deliberately hide the truth from the public. They surveyed 253 people from several countries, asking them to rate statements such as "politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions" and "government agencies closely monitor all citizens."

Uh...

Someone should let the researchers out of the lab occasionally...

If anyone disagreed with:

"politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions" and "government agencies closely monitor all citizens."

Then they either live in some random Nordic utopia, or they're the crazy ones.

Like, an international child rape ring involving multiple world leaders is the biggest news story of the decade, but only two people went to prison over it and one is about to get pardoned.

It's 2026 and you're crazy if you don't believe in at least one conspiracy.

[-] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 months ago

Not all conspiracy theories (CTs) are completely wrong. I mean remember Pizzagate, where Democrat politicians met in a pizza shop basement to molest children? Twist a couple of those theory threads into reality and you get rich people (mostly men) visiting a private island to use and abuse young girls.

I think this study simply looked for generalizations of who would be most susceptible to CTs and wasn't trying to focus on proving who is a 'believer'.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I think this study simply looked for generalizations of who would be most susceptible to CTs and wasn’t trying to focus on proving who is a ‘believer’.

The foundation of the study was flawed because "conspiratorial belief" isn't always a bad thing, because real life conspiracies are a thing.

If they were looking for problematic conspiratorial beliefs, they should have used questions that correctly isolated those.

This research is completely worthless, which is so rare it's almost impressive.

[-] zd9@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

The CIA in the 1950s-80s pushed the term "conspiracy theory" to mean some crazy tinfoil hat guy worried about lizard people, in order to discredit the people who were speaking out against actual shady/illegal/immoral things that the government and big business (which are basically the same thing) were doing to the American public.

this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026

9 points (100.0% liked)

World News

55710 readers

134 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

NewsAutoMod@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

lemmyAtom@lemmy.world